Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare?

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Mar 7, 2009

front page of phialdelphia inquirer today:

nurse's insurance nightmare makes her a single-payer advocate

i've got hundred's of patients stories told to me + personal family experiences why single payer needed.

allnurses Guide · Mar 8, 2009

front page of phialdelphia inquirer today:
nurse's insurance nightmare makes her a single-payer advocate
i've got hundred's of patients stories told to me + personal family experiences why single payer needed.

thank you karen!

i'm proud of nurse marilyn cawthon.

i think representative conyers got to the point that it is really about whether healthcare is a right.

key congressman touts single-payer health coverage
rep. john conyers jr. said yesterday that president obama would not support single-payer universal health insurance now because he had too much on his plate - two wars and an economic crisis - and had to settle for the health-care reform he could get.
the michigan democrat, speaking at thomas jefferson university, said the president would push through a public-private system of health reform, keeping private insurance through employers, and expanding a medicare-like system for the uninsured - "if he's lucky."...

...conyers came to philadelphia to rally support for his bill, which would create a single-payer system - essentially medicare for all.
under the bill, americans would pay into a health-care trust fund, most likely through payroll taxes, and that fund would pay all hospitals, doctors, and other health-care providers for their services. everything from ophthalmology to long-term care would be included. private insurers would no longer be needed.
conyers attended the health-care summit at the white house thursday, although he was a last-minute invitee. "it was very heavy with corporate health-care interests - big pharma, insurance companies, the people who don't want single-payer," he said....

..."why can't we start from the point of view that health care is an inherent constitutional right?" he asked yesterday.
"if it is a right, it shouldn't be based on employment, whether you have a job. so many people in american don't have jobs now, i don't need to tell you."...

...one retired physician told conyers that "single-payer will never happen in my lifetime."
conyers, 79, drew a huge laugh when he replied, "you may not get it in your lifetime, but i'll get it in mine."

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20090308_key_congressman_touts_single-payer_health_coverage.html

HM2VikingRN, RN · Mar 8, 2009

I support HR 676 but I think we are better off taking what we can get today..Single payer is inevitable simply because if we do nothing within 30 years health costs will consume 50% of the economy without reform.

allnurses Guide · Mar 11, 2009

Groups Protest Health Insurance Heavyweights

greenbeanio · May 26, 2009

This would explain the deafening silence in the media on this issue. Pretty effective gagging!

tntrn, ASN, RN · May 26, 2009

Well, you can't blame that "deafening" media thing on the conservatives....it has to be because once again, the President pretty much owns the MSM and tells them what to say and what they can't say.

And where in the constitution would the right to health insurance be discussed?

allnurses Guide · May 26, 2009

The advertisers own the commercial media.

How many insurance and pharma ads do you see?

The corporations also donate to candidates of both parties.

greenbeanio · May 27, 2009

Here's a video of actual, physical gagging: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3665Single-payer

And from here http://www.singlepayeraction.org/blog/?p=726

"According to a recent analysis by the group Consumer Watchdog, Senator Baucus, the leading architect of health reform in the Congress, has received more campaign contributions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations than any other current Democratic member of the House or Senate.

According to the report, Senator Baucus received $183,750 from health insurance companies and $229,020 from drug companies in the last two election cycles.

During recent Senate Finance Committee hearings on health care reform, Baucus has refused to allow even one person to testify on behalf of a single payer health care system.

Forty-one people have testified in three days of health care hearings before the Senate Finance Committee in recent weeks (13 testified on April 21, 15 testified on May 5, and 13 testified on May 12).

Not one has been a advocate for a single payer, everybody in, nobody out, Medicare for all health insurance system.

According to recent polls, single payer is supported by a majority of Americans, doctors and health economists."

greenbeanio · May 27, 2009

And where in the constitution would the right to health insurance be discussed?

The constitution was adopted in 1787. They didn't have health insurance back then, so this was not an issue that the founding fathers could have anticipated. There are many such issues that have arisen in subsequent years that have needed consideration for this reason.

If you want to go further back to 1776 however, to the guiding principles of the constitution - the Declaration of Independence - you need to consider this: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

According to the stats I think in less than every 12 minutes an American dies for lack of health insurance coverage. Which of those inalienable rights is upheld there? Even if you want to argue that one's liberty and happiness do not depend on one's health, I think it's inarguable that one's life does.

If you want to look up the stats for your own state you can check this out:

http://www.familiesusa.org/issues/uninsured/publications/dying-for-coverage.html

allnurses Guide · Jun 3, 2009

Baucus is listening but not hearing-not yet

...The genuine reform proposals supported by the nation's caregivers, and much of the American people, may not have a place at the table in the debate Baucus is conducting, but at least today, thanks to criticism from across Montana and around the country, they will have a place in Baucus' office.

He has refused to debate or even allow discussion of the idea of single-payer or guaranteed healthcare. Under this model, physicians and hospitals are private, and everyone is covered by a national, non-profit health fund; it's as if Medicare were improved and made universal. In Taiwan, Canada and most of Europe, single-payer healthcare is outperforming the American system at about half the cost.

Instead, Baucus, the No. 3 recipient in Congress of fundraising donations from health insurance corporations, supports proposals to help these insurers sell more policies to patients like me and you and reap more profits out of our healthcare system. In his role as chair of the Senate finance committee, he has opted to limit debate to just these proposals-the ones his insurance donors approve of....

Baucus is listening but not hearing-not yet...

...In Helena, angry voters delivered to Baucus the same message that the caregivers had: "A majority want single-payer healthcare." "The word 'insurance' does not equal health care," Janelle Kuechle from Polson argues at a Baucus forum last week. "If I have to pay a $900 premium to have health insurance with a $10,000 deductible, that is not health care." When a Baucus staffer dismissed these concerns, only 10 of the 275 people in the audience indicated that they like the insurance products they've been forced to buy, which jibes with national polling that a majority of the American people want real change....

http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2009/06/03/opinion/hjjajdjhhhfhha.txt

UKRNinUSA, RN · Jun 4, 2009

I just got an email from CNA:

"CNA/NNOC co-president Geri Jenkins, RN, Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, Dr. David Himmelstein, PNHP president Dr. Oliver Fein, and Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, went with Senator Sanders today to a meeting with Senator Max Baucus, who is leading the Democratic healthcare reform effort in the Senate. It was the first extended discussion Baucus has had with single-payer advocates. He heard from doctors and nurses on the front lines about the need for a real policy debate on single-payer and the dangers of keeping the insurance companies at the apex of power – and the opposition doing that will create among doctors and nurses. In response to Rose Ann DeMoro's request, Baucus agreed to drop the charges against those arrested at the Finance Committee hearing..................Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee and a practicing registered nurse, reported that Baucus had implied he'd made a mistake in not including single-payer but that it was too late now.

And, finally, Dr. Oliver Fein, president of PNHP and associate dean at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, said that he and his colleagues had asked Baucus for a full hearing on the merits of single payer and asked for the Congressional Budget Office to create a comparison of single payer with whatever plan Congress produces that is not single payer. Senator Sanders said that he would continue to push Baucus to hold a hearing."